Remember when the Cavaliers were the hottest act in Cleveland? You know, what with their winning the NBA Finals and snapping the city’s 52-year championship drought?
Well, they had their time. Now it’s the Indians’ turn, and you can practically hear them telling the Cavs, “Anything you can do, I can do better.”
The Tribe went into Friday’s afternoon tilt at the Toronto Blue Jays having won 13 games in a row. That afternoon matchup gradually turned into an evening contest, as the Indians and Blue Jays waged a battle that lasted more than six hours and into the 19th inning.
That was when, in the top of the inning, Carlos Santana punched every gut in the Rogers Centre with a solo home run that snapped a 1-1 tie. Behold:
After that, Trevor Bauer finished off a five-inning scoreless appearance out of the bullpen to preserve a 2-1 win. It may only be one win for two games’ worth of baseball, but they’ll take it.
“I guess if you’re going to set a record, you might as well do it the hard way,” said Bauer afterward, via Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
At any rate, that’s 14 in a row for the Indians and a 49-30 record overall. They lead the AL Central by seven games over the defending champion Kansas City Royals.
In times like these, the obligatory warning is that just as things are never as bad as they seem during a losing streak, things are never as good as they seem during a winning streak. Cleveland is not going to win its final 83 games. Even asking the Indians to stay on a 100-win pace is asking a lot.
But now, I shall follow that obligatory warning with a fun fact. As of Friday morning, these were the American League teams with the best odds of winning the 2016 World Series at Baseball Prospectus:
- Cleveland Indians: 20.0%
- Texas Rangers: 7.5%
- Boston Red Sox: 6.2%
You see how the Tribe were on top? You see how it wasn’t even close? This may come off like a bold stance on the part of BP’s calculations, and perhaps an overreaction to the club’s winning streak.
Or, it could just be a plain ol’ slice of truth.
One of the older cliches in the book claims that pitching and defense (AKA “run prevention”) win championships. It’s an idea that can (and has) been put to the test, but there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence in favor of it. The San Francisco Giants have based their recent dynasty around run prevention. Likewise, the Royals relied heavily on run prevention in going to back-to-back World Series.
This should be music to the ears of the Indians. Run prevention is something they not only do better than other AL club, but way better. They entered Friday allowing only 3.68 runs per game, putting them comfortably ahead of the Houston Astros at 4.22 per game.
The lion’s share of the credit goes to Cleveland’s starting rotation, which closer Cody Allen called “the backbone of the team” in speaking to Bastian. One measure rated Cleveland’s rotation as the AL’s best last year, and it’s now leaving little doubt that it deserves that honor in 2016. The 3.48 ERA owned by Tribe starters is the best in the AL.
This isn’t too surprising. Many rated Cleveland’s rotation as one of the best in baseball coming into the year. Christina Kahrl of MLB.com posited it might even be the best, mainly because of the three-headed ace monster of Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco.
And so far, they’re performing just as well, if not better, than their 2015 selves:
Anyone could have seen this coming. What was harder to see coming is Bauer making the case that Cleveland’s Big Three is actually a Big Four. He’s breaking out with a 3.02 ERA in 95.1 innings. After years of frustrating results, the 2011 No. 3 pick looks like a completely different pitcher, as August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs wrote.
Meanwhile, there’s Josh Tomlin at the back end. Just your garden-variety No. 5 starter with a 3.21 ERA. No biggie.
The work being done by Cleveland’s rotation might be half the explanation for why the club is so excellent at preventing runs. But Allen, Jeff Manship, Dan Otero and the rest of a bullpen with a 3.05 ERA (No. 2 in the AL) deserves its credit as well.
Catching the ball is also important. And with Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis holding it down up the middle, Baseball Prospectus’ defensive efficiency metric shows the Indians convert batted balls into outs better than any team in the AL:
- Indians: .726
- Rangers: .718
- Blue Jays: .716
All this is basically the long way of agreeing with what Tom Ley of Deadspin said in a more straightforward fashion: “Nobody can beat the Indians because nobody can hit them.” From their rotation to their bullpen to their defense, they’re a run-prevention nightmare.
That makes for a pretty large margin for error for an offense that’s in good-not-great territory. But that’s not to say Cleveland’s lineup is a pushover. It offers a good mix of power and speed. The Indians have slugged more home runs (100) than the mighty Red Sox offense and have swiped more bases (63) than every AL team except the Astros.
It’s hard to call the Indians the best team in the American League. They look the part right now, but the obligatory warning above must be kept in mind. Plus, the Rangers and Baltimore Orioles are awfully good in their own right.
What’s clear now, and what should remain clear going forward, is that the Indians are one of those teams nobody will want to face in October. The way they prevent runs, they wouldn’t need to score many of their own to deliver another championship to Cleveland.
That would make them guilty of stealing the Cavaliers’ thunder. But from the sound of things, a kinda-sorta important Cavalier is OK with that:
It’s good to be the king. It’s also good to have the king’s blessing.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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